


to stay a little while

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: The Outer Rim [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Destruction of Alderaan (Star Wars), Episode: s01e04 Sanctuary, Gen, Hope, Planet Sorgan (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Cara Dune stays on Sorgan longer than she means to; she isn't sure why.
Relationships: Cara Dune & Winta, Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: The Outer Rim [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055645
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	to stay a little while

Cara’s always felt it, energy humming beneath her skin, the crackle of power etched in bone and muscle. A little girl standing on an Alderaanian beach with her toes in the sand, exploding into cartwheels amidst the surf. A twelve-year-old watching holos of fights in her room, practicing throwing punches against sun-shadows painted on the wall. A young woman pacing, muscles tense and coiled, wondering how to tell her family she was leaving a world of peace for the battlefront.

She’s all of them and none, now, skin marked with memories of the lives she’s lived and shed in favor of the future. She’s always moving, still pacing, only now her journeys span star systems instead of the distance between her room to her parents’. She pays her way in muscle and odd jobs, and the stars stream out behind her, another life forgotten.

But Sorgan? Sorgan’s all right.

* * *

She’s not sure why she stays. 

It’s not like she’d intended it, though it makes some sense. Sorgan is quiet and sleepy, a place where the Rebellion -- the _Republic_ \-- old habits die hard -- probably won’t think to visit for another decade. The remnants of the Empire are even less likely to come to call, given the place’s major exports are whole krill and spotchka. Not exactly useful stuff when it comes to firepower.

It’s… nice, here. She keeps a room at the shabby inn, living off stew and wild-caught meat, finishing out the nights in a fuzzy spotchka haze. She sleeps harder and deeper than she has in a year on a wooden cot that creaks and leaves her back sore. She keeps her blaster by the bedside when she rests, but there’s dust on the handle when she finally draws it against the Mandalorian.

She’s only seen one or two in her time. She’s heard the rumors, Mandalore’s fate nearly as grim as Alderaan’s ( _never as bad as that, nothing could be as bad as that,_ her stomach twists at the thought). But she’s never heard of the Mandalorian survivors traveling with tiny weird children in tow, and she wonders what the hell the two of them are really doing here.

* * *

Seems like she and the Mandalorian have something in common. Home’s something for other people, softer people; but just because it’s not for her, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth defending. She looks at the villagers, men and women and children in simple clothes with krill stains on their boots and hands. Their little homes are small and humble, raised by hand, near enough to the ponds that Cara can hear the krill bubble beneath the surface if she listens hard. They live so near to nature that they can touch it at any time.

Alderaan was like this, too.

One of the villagers, Caben, she thinks, helps get her situated in a small hut on the edge of the settlement. He’s nervous and excited both, and the hope in his face unsettles her. His eyes are wide at the amount of weaponry she stows next to her bed.

“You know we can’t guarantee anything, right?” she asks. “Not until we know what you’re up against.”

Caben shakes out a heavy blanket. Sunlight catches dust motes in the breeze from the blanket, and they hang like gold in the air between them.

“We understand,” he says hastily. “It’s just… if you can help us… you don’t know what it would mean to us, to protect our home.”

She smiles a little despite herself. “I know what you mean.”

* * *

Though of course, it’s not that simple.

_Simple_ would have been a band of drunken raiders on foot. She could have left the Mandalorian napping with his strange little kid and taken them all out before they got up for breakfast, if that was all they had to deal with. But instead there’s an AT-ST on this backwater little planet, and she realizes the damn Empire got here after all. 

She stands in the footprint of a scout walker, beneath broken branches high overhead. The cold she feels has nothing to do with the spring breeze through the trees.

She’s done, now. She wants to leave and so does the Mandalorian; she feels an echo of her own energy ringing off him. The urge to run is a familiar one. 

It’s not their problem. Not really. 

“I didn’t sign up for this,” she growls, their boots crushing twigs and moss in the thick loam as they walk back to the village.

“I don’t know what these people are thinking,” he says. “There isn’t enough firepower on this _planet_ for that.”

“You’re telling me.” She shakes her head, retracing their path through the ferns and trees. “What will you and the kid do?” 

“We’ll have to move on; it’s not as if we have a choice. Guild hunters will be after him if we can’t find somewhere quiet,” says Mando. His voice is as inscrutable as his helmet. She’s not sure if he’s angry about the situation, or just resigned. “And you?”

“I’ll hitch a ride back to the town, I guess,” she says. But the idea doesn’t sit well with her. 

The little village comes into view, and she spots the villagers in blue catching their krill and moving about their day-to-day. Mando’s strange green kid plays at the edge of the woods with the widow’s daughter and some of the other children. Their giggles are a sound that doesn’t belong with what her memory gives her, the creak and groan of metal feet swinging through the battlefield, the sharp whine of blaster fire, the flash of explosions. 

They’ll never be safe with that thing out there.

* * *

Mando turns out to be even blunter than she is. No wonder they get along so well. “You can’t live here anymore,” he announces to the village.

She chokes in surprise. “Nice bedside manner,” she mutters. Maybe the guy’s heart is beskar, too. 

“You think you can do better?” he asks, and she thinks maybe he’s a little miffed under the helmet. She’d laugh if the villagers weren’t staring at them like their world has ended. She flinches a little. She knows the feeling.

“Can’t do much worse,” she says under her breath. The villagers stare up at them, their eyes wide. She lets her voice ring out over the clearing. “I know this is not the news you wanted to hear, but there are no other options.”

An uproar. They shout and yell, and she winces. Denial’s always hard to watch. She explains about the AT-ST; they tell her about family, about tradition, about home. 

She tries to make them see it. Tries to make her voice carry what it needs to, tries to translate soldiers gasping their last breaths in the dark to something they can understand. But she’s never had words for things like this, she’s only had fists and fire, and she doesn’t know how to pull that forward into something that can be shared. She isn’t sure she she wants to know how. 

The words she does come up with, finally, are too spare. “I’ve seen that thing take out entire companies of soldiers in a matter of minutes,” she says heavily, and she knows it doesn’t come close to making them hear what they need to hear.

The widow looks sharply at her, eyes blazing. “We’re not leaving.”

“You _cannot_ fight that thing,” says Cara, but the other woman stands tall and square, and something in the set of her shoulders makes Cara doubt. Maybe --

Mando feels it, too, the steel coming alive in these people. She’s relieved when he turns back to the villagers and says to her, “Unless we show them how.”

She cracks a grin. Okay. Okay. Maybe things will go down different, this time.

She nods to the widow. “Hey,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Omera,” she replies. Her daughter hugs her, hard, around the middle. Omera’s hand is gentle on her daughter’s shoulders, but her face is set with determination. 

Good. They’ll need it.

* * *

It takes them near a week to get the villagers ready, and the routine almost starts to feel familiar by the end. Up in the morning early for training. Villagers split up into teams to dig trenches, fell trees, raise stakes. There’s melee practice with her; Mando handles the shooting. There’s a rhythm here that reminds her of the best of the Rebellion days, and she finds herself _enjoying_ it, grinning when Stoke manages to knock Caben on his ass with his staff, crowing when their practice run goes well. She’s missed this.

Evenings are guard duty, hoping the Klatooinians don’t come back before they can spring their trap, but there’s still time for a glass of spotchka around the fire. She enjoys the quiet that springs up as the birds sing their goodnight songs and the people speak theirs. She’s missed this, too.

Some nights she sits with Omera and her daughter, Winta, complimenting the woman on her shooting skills. Some nights she trades drinks with Caben and Stoke, making them laugh until they snort their spotchka up the nose. Some nights she and Mando sit and talk strategy; sometimes they sit and trade war stories, the kind filled with casual horrors you can only tell a stranger. 

Mando’s funny little kid sits on the ground between their legs, playing games with sticks and pebbles in the dirt. Sometimes the kid turns to Cara, waving a stick with delight; she leans over and sagely tells him it’s a good one, nice and… branchy. Sometimes he falls asleep against Mando’s leg, and Mando reaches down, rubbing his little back as the fire crackles. 

It all starts feeling pretty good.

* * *

Her skin’s on fire in the best way, blood pumping real and fierce and frenzied through her veins. The villagers dance around the ruins of the AT-ST as the moon wanes. No one’s getting any sleep tonight, and why should they? The victory’s real and glorious, the Empire’s war machine brought down by wooden sticks and krill ponds and Mando’s pulse rifle, guts and instinct and sheer grit, and it’s a heady, raucous thing. Villagers shout snatches of songs, children run and play way past their bedtime, and the spotchka flows. Dank _farrik_ , she hasn’t felt this good in years.

She raises her glass high and bumps into the Mandalorian. He’s holding his sleeping kid, though how the kid can sleep through all the celebration she has no idea.

“Mando! Come on, have a drink. I think we earned it,” Cara laughs. She nudges him with an elbow, the bone ringing against his beskar. She shakes the sensation loose from her arm. That stuff’s tough as hell.

He stands for a moment at the fire’s edge, and she watches the flames dancing in the reflections of his armor. He rests one hand on the sleeping kid’s chest. “I’m glad they’re happy.”

“Aren’t _you_ , man?”

He considers. She takes a drink of her spotchka. Hell, what does it _take_ for this guy to loosen up?

“Yeah. We did a good thing for this village,” he says. “The children will be safe now.” His hand tightens on the kid’s robe. 

“It’s a rare thing, these days,” she points out. “Safety. All the more reason to celebrate, don’t you think?”

He lets out a dry chuckle, and she raises her brow. He knows how to laugh? 

“I think the kid’s done enough celebrating for both of us,” he says, voice a little lighter than normal. Maybe he’s smiling, under there. “Do you know how many frogs that walker killed when it exploded? I caught him stuffing barbecued frogs into his mouth by the handful.” 

“No wonder he’s out cold,” Cara laughs. “All right, all right, go put your kid to bed. But there’s plenty of spotchka out here if you change your mind.”

“He’s not _my_ \--” He sighs, nods. “Goodnight.” He heads back to his hut, kid cradled in his arms. Cara watches him go, puzzled. She’s not a joiner herself, so she gets it; that need to go off and be alone sometimes. But this is a celebration, a community kicking ass and protecting itself, and he’s had no small part in it. So why turn away now?

She finishes her glass, frowning, and steps back toward the fire. 

“Cara Dune!” Stoke bellows in delight, and the villagers cheer. She grins and pumps her fist, and the party keeps on rolling.

* * *

She should move on, her work done, village saved, credits paid. But she stays, and so do Mando and his kid, and they don’t talk about it. Which suits her just fine.

Cara thinks she knows why Mando stays. The kid toddles up to him to show him leaves and bugs, and he examines them patiently in the palm of his hand. The little one makes friends with Winta and the other kids, and they play tag or chase or whatever they call it here, with breaks to learn their lessons out in the bright sun. Mando makes his rounds through the village, speaking now and then with Omera or nodding to the other farmers, and she watches the native vigilance in him soften, just a little. And when he takes the kid to bed at night, she sees him stroke the little guy’s ears when he thinks she isn’t looking. 

Yeah. Makes sense he’d want to stay.

She’s a little less sure about herself. It’s not that she doesn’t like the villagers; they’re good solid people, plainspoken, and they look up to her like anything. But she wonders sometimes if it’s something else keeping her here.

She stands in the forest one gleaming morning, exercising. Her body’s as much a weapon as her blasters or vibroblade, and despite the village quickly returning to its sleepy ways, she has no intention of letting this weapon dull. She works her way through warmups and into heavier exercise, alternating cardiac work with body weight strength exercises.

The sound of her own breath mingles with the sounds of the forest. Drummer birds peck _ratatat_ against the pines. Gold siskins chip cheerily high in the branches; plump ground birds sing _ahlolo, ahlolo_ as they trundle their way through the ferns and shrubs. They’ve become as familiar to her as the villagers, and she remembers lessons on Alderaan, her teachers sharing the names of their planet’s plants and wildlife with joy in their faces. She liked the lessons, but where the other kids walked patiently, she jumped and climbed and somersaulted, getting in serious trouble. 

Still, though, she remembers the names they taught her, and she remembers the names of the Sorgan creatures when the villagers let them slip.

Cara smiles a little, eyes stinging. Huh. 

Maybe there’s something to that. 

She finishes her push-up and rocks back on her heels, surveying the woods from a crouched position. The pine needles beneath her boots are shades of rust and gold. They smell clean and piercing. She extends one hand, brushes her fingertips against them. They prick her fingers, and she closes her eyes at the sensation, feeling the sweat bead on her cheeks and forehead.

A rustle behind her sends her into a fighting stance, blaster half-drawn before she realizes it’s just Winta. The girl squeaks, startled, and Cara quickly holsters her blaster, standing up straight.

“Morning, Winta,” she says, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “What are you doing out here?”

The girl gives her a gap-toothed grin, her eyes bright. “I -- I was following you, Miss Dune.”

Cara’s eyes widen. “Oh please, just call me Cara, kid.”

Winta giggles. “Okay, Cara.” She tries the name out hesitantly, sounding excited to say it. “Is it okay if I watch you train?”

Cara’s taken aback. A strange request, one she’s never had from a kid before, but then again, she doesn’t really do the whole kid thing. “Sure, I guess. Why do you want to?”

Winta twists her hands together, looking away. “I just -- I think it’s really neat, how you’re so _strong_. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” says Cara, very seriously. She crosses her arms and waits as if the kid’s about to drop major enemy intel.

“I think you’re even stronger than the Mandalorian!” Winta whispers, then dissolves into another storm of giggles. 

“Damn right I am!” Cara laughs. 

Winta gazes up at her. “I want to be strong too someday. Like you!”

“Why not start now?” Cara asks, her face flushing with unexpected warmth. She looks down at Winta’s bright eyes, and sees a different kid told to settle down, to stay still, to stop fighting. She breathes in the scents of Sorgan, so crisp and clean, so familiar, somehow.

“Come on,” says Cara. “Now first, you’ll want to set yourself up in a solid stance…” She digs her boots into the loam and Winta does the same, her small hands tightening into fists. “Good! If you’re anchored right, nothing can knock you down.” 

The kid nods, looking just as determined as her mother. Cara grins to see it. “Like this, Cara?”

“Yeah,” says Cara proudly. She swallows. “Just like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just really wanted to think about Cara healing a little bit on Sorgan! Sure, Alderaan was 9 years ago.... doesn't mean it's something she's fully dealt with, though. It's not something you ever get over. Also wanted to explore her early friendship with Din; it was fun to write him so early on when he seemed so mysterious!


End file.
